Bears!

On our flight home today we saw a sow grizz trotting around with her three newborn cubs, looking quite cute. Then on the next valley over, we found a group of 7! That's the picture above. It's pretty unusual to see this many together, since the males stick to themselves. The best guess is that this mom had 3 cubs, then had another 3 the year after or adopted another 3. After this was taken, we saw three more solo bears near the water. The king salmon are definitely running now. 14 spotted in a 10 minute flight!

hello again!

Well yes, we're back! Waiting for the weather to turn in Chignik can afford one with some time to catch up with fun things that have been neglected for too long. After our fun U-haul trip last summer through Denali and up to Fairbanks, it was just non-stop work and shennagins for an entire year, bringing us full circle and back to Chignik! Here are some of the highlights (all photos should be up on the pics link aside from our last 2 weeks out here):

July - August 2007 - Played at Liberty Bell camp, just east of Healy, AK on the Parks Highway, just on the north side of McKinley Park.

September 22, 2007 - Finally sealed the deal and got married in Copper Harbor, MI!

October 2007 - Hit the honeymoon road to Tuscany and the Cinque Terre in Italy, generously supported by our great friends the Della Libras. Our Chilean manager Michele and his family offered us their home and car for our visit and we were rewarded with delicious, one-of-a-kind meals and even finer company and travel suggestions. Many thanks.

November 2007 - To central Mexico for Joel to work on a project, and to Fairbanks for Jo, to tidy up a report.

December 2007 - In the Denver office for a bit before having a great Holiday in Summit County, enjoying the snow and a Rotert family reunion.

AND...We finally bought a home in Portland! Very small (722 sq. ft) but right in the heart of town with front door access to the light rail. Wish we could spend a bit more time here, but just the thought of having a home base is nice. Never thought our first home would be a condo but it's easy to take care of while we're away. We love it.

January - March 2008 - Down to Chile for some more mapping work at our Rio Figueroa project. Jo was sent back down at the end of the month through most of March while I worked on some other projects from home in Portland.

April - May 2008 - Up to Fairbanks to get the field season rolling, then back to Portland for a bit, on to Denver, then back up to Anchorage to gear up for the Peninsula project.

During our Denver visit it was announced that Metallic Resources will soon merge with 2 other companies. We're still awaiting news of our fate though an offer for continued employment is in the works. We're hoping we can keep the team together as we've come to love working with this group of people. We'll see.

And now Chignik for year 3 of field work. That's it! We'll try to keep you more up to date this summer and with our whereabouts, who knows maybe we'll have the rest of the summer off. eek.

Cantwell, Alaska

First, I should say that we have a lot to post, and I do plan on putting up stuff related to our trip to Buenos Aires and Uruguay, our visits in the U.S. with family and friends, and our first Alaska work shift down on the Alaska Peninsula in Chignik. This is the first internet connection we've had overlap with some time off, though, and our cultural enligtenment during dinner tonight proved to be pretty good fodder for a quick post.


3 indications the bar you just entered may not be the best place to stay:

1. The bartender's first question to you is "do you have any guns to check?" and informs you he's leaving the state because he's sick of shootings and knife fights.

2. The guy who's just bellyed up at the stool next to yours begins his conversation with "yeah i've been in and out of prisons pretty much my whole life, but I only get DWIs now"

3. At 10PM, "Swamp Angel Road" is taking the stage.




Welcome to Cantwell, Alaska, home to 212 hearty souls, approximately 70 miles east of Denali Peak as the crow flies on the Parks Highway. Jo and I have packed up a Uhaul with field gear and boxes of other random stuff including a pair of crutches and a well-worn moon-boot foot brace (see post regarding Hawaii trip last summer) and are headed north toward our new project area just east of Ferry, AK, then to Fairbanks for a few days. If you're ever in the area, I highly recommend the Cantwell Lodge for a burger and lively conversation.

Only in Alaska..........

Only in Alaska can you buy a handgun at the grocery store. Yesterday I went in to Fred Meyer to pick up a few things and walked out with a carton of milk, a box of cereal, some toilet paper, a Ruger .357 revolver, and a six-pack (figured I could use the empty cans for target practice).

Jo

Sunsets and Schedules

I know I take too many pictures of sunsets, but here it's a shame not too. Had another beautiful one tonight.

Schedule

It looks like Jo and I will spend our next break in Buenos Aires, Argentina as our visas are set to expire at the start of May. Pretty excited about this! Our friend Alex and his girlfriend Paula coincidentally are moving from Santiago to Montevideo just before our break, so it looks like we'll get to hang out a bit with them too. Should be loads of fun. Alex went to school with Jo at Oregon State and was with us on our first overseas trip to New Zealand in 2000. He's worked in South America a long time and speaks like a local. It'll be good to have him around, since our Spanish is still pretty bad.

After another work shift, we'll head back to the states for a short break, sometime around the end of May/start of June, then make our way up to Alaska for another season of gunslingin and rockhoundin.

We're off to work tomorrow so we'll be off the net for bit. Ciao.

End of summer?

Well it is here anyway. Kids are back in school, the tourists are back in Santiago and Argentina, and the nights are cool. A perfect time to take a few days off in La Serena. To be honest, Jo and I are enjoying some domestic time in the apartment. Lucky for me, she has an addiction to cooking fabulous ornate meals originating from around the globe. I just have to sit back and eat. Tough.


Pisco Elqui

Since our visit to Pisco Elqui in the Elqui Valley over last break, Jo's also perfected the art of the pisco sour. Just be sure you put in enough pisco to take Uncle Sal (salmonella) out of the party since raw egg white is involved.

Seriously though, the Elqui Valley was a much needed respite after another stint at camp. The barren brown mountains are contrasted by lush and bright green grape vines in the tight valley. Gorgeous. Jo and I each independently stumbled upon the same place to stay in our short search for accomodation there ... the cabanas at Mysterios de Elqui. Since we arrived on a Monday, no one was there except for one other couple! This place has an amazing pool and surrounding entertainment setup that I wish we had some use for. Set upon the southern side of the valley, you enter from the street on the valley high-side and are greeted at reception by James (yes, Chileno), the owner. He took us down the path to our cabana, outfitted with its own covered porch. The next morning, around 9, a breakfast of local fruits, crepes and coffee appeared on the porch around 9am, as included.

Sometime before noon (I think) we made our way further down the grounds to the beautiful thatch-roofed bar and outdoor seating area that overlook the pool.

A bit of guilt hit me since this area then overlooks the fields where locals are out sweating and picking grapes. Hope those guys get a vacation, too. Actually, James pointed out that Pisco Elqui is fortunate in that all residents (barely over 1 or 200) are employed. That's more than you can say about lots of towns back home. But I digress. Back to my American over-indulgence. The coolest feature were the adobe loungers molded into the short wall around the pool area that overlook the valley:

As the name implies, Pisco Elqui is well know for it's pisco production. For the uninitiated (like me in Oct. 2006) pisco is a liquor derived from certain varietal of grapes, distilled in a similar way as brandy. The final product varies in strength, anywhere from 35 to 45 proof, with the strong stuff of course being the "best" that you should really drink neat. That is, of course, unless you would like to be able to walk for the next hour or so. The varieties we've tries so far vary from a fine ether to a brandy/tequila mix. The locals solve this issue of questionable flavor by adding copious amounts of simple syrup, fresh lemon juice, and (usually) some egg white. Toss a drop of angostra bitters in the jar, shake it up, then pour into a fancy looking glass, delicately add another drop or two of bitters, and there's your pisco sour. A fine drink. But no more than two, I warn you.

Jo and I took a tour of the Mistral pisco distillery and had the good fortune of seeing the sights with a guide who took pity on our Spanish abilities. It was an animated affair and she did a fabulous job of somehow making us understand everything from the distillation process to how long the first owner of the fields played dominos with his buddies in a cave in a drunken stupor sometime in the late 1800s. Kudos to this woman. And there was free tasting at the end. Again, kudos to this woman. Along the way we were able to take some pretty ridiculous touron pics. I'm only going to post one (the rest are on the Flickr site):

I have no idea what association this car has to the distillation of pisco. But the facts remain as they are, Jo is behind the wheel and you should get off the road.

At the end of the tour, we picked a pisco we liked and got to fill and label our very own bottle! We'll be sure to have this on hand in Copper Harbor in September. The only drawback was that they made Jo wear this hat while she filled it up. She was very excited about me taking this picture.

Besides cabanas and pisco, Pisco Elqui is a picturesque town in itself. A blurb about it wouldn't be complete without a pic of the local church. The town plans in Latin America may be pretty similar, but the character of each place is unique.

Punta de Choros boat tour

During our break in mid-February we took a day to drive north and take a boat tour with our office assistant Jessica out of the quaint fishing village town of Punta de Choros. Jessica had taken the tour before but missed out on seeing dolphins and hoped to get a view this time around. Apparently they were around, but not while we were in the water. Regardless, it was a bright sunny day, the water was brilliant blues and greens, and we saw lots of penguins and sea lions. It was a load of fun. Some of the other guests on the boat jumped in for a dip, but believe me the water is not as warm as it looks. Not Canon Beach cold, but not close to tropical. Below are a couple of highlights, again, more pics are posted on Flickr.

By the way, Flickr has a cool new feature that allows you to pin photos to a map location. I've been trying to add locations to our photos, hopefully I can finish that up before next break. I've finished most of the Chile pics and some of the Alaska photos. It's a pretty amazing tool and the locations can be view on a simple typical map style or with satellite photos or a hybrid of the two. Resolution is within tens of meters for the map, little under a kilometer for the sat photos. Check it out!

Edits to Last entry

...just a quick note to let you know that the airport information (for the wedding) was incorrect in the last entry and has since been edited. In the meantime, we will put together a wedding website that is separate from the blog...more on that later.

ciao!

Hola Amigos

We'll we're posting again so that means:

1. we took some more pictures
2. we are in a hurry to go somewhere where we'll be out of computer range for a bit

So let's recap...


HOLIDAY ROADTRIP 2006-07

Hopefully most of you got the Holiday memo for this past holiday season. It included a bit of our roundabout trip to Denver during the massive snowstorm(s) that shut down the airport for a few days. The short version of this story is that as we came in for landing at DIA on the morning of the 23rd, the winds were too strong to land so we went to Salt Lake. After a few hourse on the tarmac there, the airline decided to take us back to Dallas, where we had originated, unless of course you count the flights from La Serena and Santiago. Anyway, without a way to get on another flight until the 27th, we had to rent a car and hit the road.

At first, we thought we were heading to Denver. By Amarillo, this clearly was not gonna happen. The weather and road were still awful and the thought of getting to Denver only to turn around and head back to New Mexico wasn't pleasant. The next day we bee-lined it for Taos.

My good friend Jayson lives in a beautiful adobe in Arroyo Seco (below), just outside of town and strategically located near Taos Ski Valley. He hooked me up with some gear and we got some nice turns in under blue bird skies. It was a great visit. I also bumped into a good friend from the Colorado College days who's relocated back to Taos, where he grew up. Jake taught me a thing or two about skiing during that one year in Colorado Springs and it was great to see him, hang out and meet his new wife and babe. Of course, I should have taken more photos. I don't have one of either Jayson or Jake.




For Christmas Eve and Day, we had plans to meet up with our friends Heath and Shanti at their super comfy new home in Sante Fe. Our friend Brandon also joined us from Portland. We spent a good deal of time getting caught up with our mutally busy lives and then proceeded to cook and eat. Well, some cooked more than others (everyone but Joel), but that's largely because I doubt they'd care too much for a meal I prepared.

We had a lovely stroll down Canyon Road gawking at art and enjoying the luminarios and lights brightened by white snow...

And went for a late dinner at Maria's for the traditional pasole and tamales. Delicious.

Christmas Day was a feast of Chilean empanadas for lunch following by cornish game hens and numerous accompaniments in the evening. Heath captured the moment well with the family seated all around...

By the 26th it was time to say goodbye and head north to visit our friends Stacy and Mike. Stacy's Dad graciously offered to let us stay at his wonderful new home in Bayfield, CO, about 15 east of Durango. Thanks again Steve! It was fun getting caught up with those guys while dodging out-of-control Texans (no disrespect intended to my fellow rednecks) on the slopes at Wolf Creek.

We also had a chance to get to know Dutton (Stacy and Mikes beautiful chocolate lab) well. What a great pup. In between runs we were able to hit the refreshing Pagosa Hot Springs. Very relaxing. At some point we need to visit these guys at home in Socorro, New Mexico.

Next on the agenda was Denver. Until the second snowstorm put an end to that idea. Better find a place to stay, quick, New Years is just around the bend. Then the thought hit me. I got a hold of friends Bret and Keri. Just a few years back they found a condo near the base of Crested Butte. As luck would have it, no one was renting for the next 3 days and we were in! How cool are those guys? Thanks again! You can check out their view from the balcony below.

Jo and I had a nice romantic dinner out on the town following by an old-fashioned throw-down by local funk band Full-Stop Funk supported by the super boogiefied Children of the Horn. Although the snow conditions weren't ideal, we had blue skies on the mountain and enjoyed a great day of cross country skiing during the first day of 2007.

As we made our way back to Denver, we couldn't resist the temptation to soak at the Mt. Princeton Hot Springs. So we lounged in the thermals on the side of the river before succombing to the calls of work.

VANCOUVER - WHISTLER JANUARY 2007

We headed back to Chile on Jan. 4 and worked for a few weeks before heading back up north for the Roundup Mineral Exploration Conference in Vancouver, BC at the end of January. We capped off the busy and fun week by skiing a few days at Whistler where friends from Seattle, Portland, and Nevada met us, stayed and played. Good times. Unfortunately we have hardly any photos from this 10 day trip. I did manage to get a good one of our friend Kevin, who's a new Master's student at the Mineral Deposit Research Unit at UBC in Vancouver. You'll find Kev in some other photos from Mongolia (likely with a beard and mad look in his eye), he worked with us on several different projects over there. We commented to each other several times that it was nice to get to know one another after having showered.

BACK TO CHILE

On February 6 we left Vancouver, spent a night in Denver, then headed down south. Looks like we be working down here until at least May, maybe a bit longer. We're likely headed to a project in Mexico for 3-4 weeks after that. At some point we'll make it back to Denver for a short time before heading back to Alaska for at least part of the summer.

WANTED - WEDDING PLANNER

And in the middle of all this craziness is our wedding!

SEPTEMBER 22, 2007

As many have pointed out, I made an error in my email with the attached Holiday memo. The wedding is in fact THIS year, we are not yet married.

Jo has worked hard to solidify accomidations for 250-300 people in Copper Harbor, although we'll be impressed if we fill all the rooms.

I've had several people ask how to get to Copper Harbor by air. The easist route is to fly to

Hancock, MI (adjacent to Houghton) (~45 min. from Copper Harbor, airport code = CMX)

However, alternatives are to drive from:

Marquette, MI (~ 2 hrs. 15 min. airport code = MQT)

Duluth, MN (~ 4 hrs. 45 min., airport code = DLH)

Central Wisconsin airport in Wassau, WI (~ 4 hrs. 45 min., airport code = CWA )

Flights are probably cheaper to Minneapolis or Chicago, but the drive would be quite long (~ 7 hrs). We are planning on providing a shuttle from the airport in Houghton/Hancock to Copper Harbor to avoid the need of a car rental there. We're hoping this and the affordability of the hotels will offset some of the airline costs for those who must fly. Look for further details on the blog or the official invite that we hope to have out this spring. On that note:

PLEASE EMAIL US YOUR MAILING ADDRESS!

hopefully you know the email, I'm not going to post it here for fear of phishers and spammers.

Hope you're all well!

Well leave it to us to wait until 2 hours before we leave the country to report on it. Better late than never I guess! Jo and I have found Chile to be a bit too comfortable and suspect we may enjoy spending more time here in the future. Below is the view we have to put up with while mapping rocks in the Andes.

The people we work with are fantastic and we had lots of fun at camp. Our manager threw a Navidad barbeque for the gang so we had a local, and certainly free range, goat cooked up. No offense to the Mongolians we worked with, but this was waaaaaaaaaaaaaay better than any sheep. Here's a good shot of Jo and the boys:

And one of camp:

For the last week or so we've been back in La Serena. We had a chance on Saturday to do a little Christmas shopping and wander the streets:

Sunday we hit the beach. We decided to take a short road trip about 30 min. south to the smaller fishing village of Tolgoy. Now, when you go to the beach, do you bring a towel or blanket to sit on? Well not us. We brought pillowcases. Yeah, that's right, pillowcases. Don't ask. Now to top it off, the only sunscreen we had was the magnesium oxide; you remember, that stuff from the 80s you'd put on your lips that makes you look you stuck your head in a bowl of flour because it's so white? Yeah that. Well I tend to burn so I had no choice since Chile is sin ozone layer. We call this one mime on a pillowcase:

Joanna O'nassis in her Sunday best, soaking up the rays.

Keeping hydrated:

More pics from camp, La Serena, and the beach are up on the flickr site.

We're both excited to see friends and family over the holidays. Hoping to get some turns in on the slopes too! Feliz Navidad.....

We're Back!

But not for long! Here is summary of important items:

1. We've finished up work in Alaska - our last assigment at Kasaan was fantastic and new pics are up on the Flikr site, just click the "our pics" link at right to view.

2. We took October off from work to visit family and friends in Wisconsin, Michigan, Kansas, Oregon, and Colorado. It was a wonderful visit. We spent a fair bit of time trudging through snow in Michigan making Halloween costumes while in Kansas.

3. Our very good friends Spencer and Amy are now newlyweds and they threw a fantastic wedding in southern Wisconsin, photos will very shortly be up on the Flikr site. We all wish them congrats!

4. We have a new "permanent" job and have just arrived in Chile. Our office is located in the beautiful coastal town of La Serena though our field work and camp will be in the Andes. We will be in Colorado and New Mexico over the holidays, then back down south for the rest of winter and spring in either Chile or Mexico before heading back up to Alaska. Below is a pic of our lovely terrace overlooking the city and coast.



5. I just discovered several comments that were made sometime ago were not posted as they had not been moderated. I apologize as I didn't realize this needed to be done! When we get back from the field in a couple - 3 weeks we'll be sure to check this and hopefully add another update.

Ketchikan to Kasaan

We're in a hurry as I write this. Yesterday Joanna, myself, and another consulting geologist flew to Ketchikan. In about 1 hour we'll be taking the state ferry over to Hollis on Prince of Wales Island. From Hollis we'll be driving to the historic village of Kasaan. This area was host to the very first mining claim ever filed in the Territory of Alaska back in the 1850's or 1860's. Jo and I will be living in a double wide trailer right on the Kasaan Bay and choppering up to the prospect site to do a bit of mapping. We won't have access to the internet unless we drive to get groceries in Craig or Klawock. This is probably the last post until we head back to Ancorage sometime in mid-September. One of the nicest totem parks in Southeast Alaska is near the village of Kasaan so expect to see some photos when we get back!

Hawai'i - continued

Well, unfortunately I was unable to upload all the pics I wanted for the last post. The internet and our schedule just didn't agree. And I didn't have time to detail our drive to Hawai'i Volcanoes National Park. We'll definately have to go back as hiking with crutches didn't work out too well. At any rate, we were able to see steam vents, the Kiluea Crater, rift zones, endless lava flows, and steam plumes rising out of the sea where fresh lava spills into the ocean. You can check out the rest on the flickr.com site by clicking the "our pics" link on the right of this page.

Hawai'i - The Big Island

After Returning to Anchorage, Jo and I were excited to spend a week traveling in Alaska. We considered taking the train to Denali, kayaking from Whitter or near Homer, or visiting Kennecott. Only one problem: RAIN. The forecast called for nothing but terrible weather for the week all over the state! Ugh.



On our way to see Talladega Nights (pretty funny by the way), we thought about putting some air miles to use. After the movie we made a quick phone call and booked two tickets to Kona, departing the next day! We got online, found a fantastic little 1 bedroom place for rent by a local couple, and packed our bags.
Because we had a transfer and overnight at LAX, we called some friends and spent a fun Saturday evening with them in Santa Monica. By Sunday afternoon we were on the lanai enjoying a refreshing beverage. Great stuff. The first pic shows part of the beautiful view.

By Monday we were here in Kekaha Kai State Park. Bliss.







Monday was a beach day mixed with a little hiking and a dash of snorkeling. 30 minutes of required walking tends to keep out the riff-raf and makes a potentially busy beach relatively secluded. At the tail end of a short snorkel, I looked over to find a sea turtle swimming within arms reach. Very cool.

On Tuesday, Jo and I scouted out Kona and had a lovely sunset dinner on the beach. We found new favorite local food, too. Poke is tuna sashimi with some seaweed, seasame oil, ground chilis, rice vinegar, soy sauce, and some green onion. Ooooo it is tasty. Highly recommended for any sushi lovers out there.

Wednesday we decided to check out Kealakekua Bay, the infamous spot where the famous Brittish explorer Captain James Cook was killed. It is also very close to where we stayed and one of the best snorkeling spots on the island. We rented a kayak for the morning and paddled our way out to the Cook memorial on the coast. It turns out that this trip is popular with just about everyone, but the crowds were confined to the put-in and monument areas. Once your head is underwater, you don't really care about much else anyway, since there are so many gorgeous fish to stare at! I wish we had a waterproof case for our camera, though I think Jo likes a spot where I'm not taking pictures of everything.

Wednesday night we decided to cheese it up and go to a genuine, 70's era resort style Luau. It was amazing! There were various Polynesian themed dances that would start very traditional, then bust into some crazy gig that was likely scored by the lovechild of Don Ho and Tom Jones. It was wildly entertaining and in all honesty the food was fantastic, with a traditional slowly roasted pig, more poke, and all sorts of tasty fresh fruit.

Since Tuesday my right foot had been sore. I blew it off until Thursday morning when I discovered it was unbearable to walk on. Jo finally convinced me it was time to go to the clinic. Here I must digress and explain how that on any travel break it is tradition that I get sick, hurt, or lose an appendage so that I have to go to the clinic at least once. This trip therefore is no exception. I was diagnosed with bursitis and told to stay off of my foot and keep ice on it/off it for 15 minute intervals. Let's see...coolers like to have ice, I can put my foot on it, and they go well with beaches...sounds like bursitis is working out well with the beach vacation theme! By the time we made it out there on Thursday however, I realized I should have considered how well crutches work in the sand. Not very. I managed to scoot at least 20 feet though and that was good enough for me!

Neglect

We have a lot of ground to cover.

After our last post, life got pretty hectic! And we had very restricted access to the internet. The combination of the two resulted in the title of this post, referring to our blogging! Regardless, we still want to throw in some updates when we can so I'll attempt to play catch up while being brief.

Following the wrap of work in Chignik, Jo, myself, Robert, Hans, and Andy moved the operation a few miles (100 or so) down the Peninsula to the town of Sand Point. This town is on a nice island (without bears!) called Popof in the Shumagin group. Sand Point is a metropolis compared to Chignik, with a large grocery and supply store, 3 restaurants, tavern, and a paved road! We stayed in the only hotel, the Anchor Inn. Andy managed a few nights in a very comfy B&B.





During the day, weather permitting, we flew to another prospect called Pyramid on the Peninsula, about 15-20 minutes away by air. Since Pyramid is a high point on a narrow part of the peninsula between the Bearing and Pacific Oceans, the weather is usually terrible. High winds, low ceiling levels and rain, which is typical of the Aleutians in general, is magnified here. We managed to map and sample for 4 and a half days before heading back to Anchorage. This pic below shows the best weather we experienced. Don't get me wrong, it's still a beatuiful place, it's just not very often you can see it!



Jo and I headed out on Aug. 8 back to Anchorage. Unfortunately the weather didn't cooperate with Robert and Hans who were scheduled to leave a few days later. They eventually escaped and got a few days of well deserved rest. Andy's on a new project, somewhere up near Elam I think. Andy, you out there?

more pics can be viewed on the flickr site, see the "our pics link" on this page.

Jo vs. The Volcano

We flew the chopper over Veniominof Crater several weeks ago on the way to one of our prospects. The center of the ~10km-diameter crater has an active cone, shown here with its plume and a glacier on the south flank.

critters

This was taken from our kitchen window. He was sitting on a lamp post enjoying what was left of a fish.

morning commute

So the trip to work each morning has been pretty fun. In the area we've been working in recently, we've needed to be up high to map. Yesterday we had some cloud cover (but no rain, hard to imagine now) so we couldn't get to the top of the hill. Our pilot Andy was able to get us just below cloud level though. He calls this a toe-in, when only part of the skids are on the ground. I was dropped off first when he had his other skid on the ridge and hopped out of the rear left. Then Andy spun the helicopter around to drop off Jo from the front passenger seat. Needless to say we've had a blast flying around! The views are amazing.

The net here is still really slow but we'll keep trying to put more pics up!

Chignik

So after over two weeks without internet, we're finally back online. We've been in Chignik now for over two weeks and have had the opportunity to fly over some of the most amazing scenery I've ever seen! Never have we seen so many towering waterfalls, one after the other, almost every few seconds it seems as we're flying. Many fall straight into the ocean or lead to a stream surrounded by nothing but alder and grass. Now and again there is the odd moose, plenty of bald eagles, and even sea otters laying on their backs just outside Chignik Bay. Of course, it isn't all roses, it's been raining since June 5 and has only quit for a few hours since. Field work can be rough and not all that fun with all the rainwear and gear we're lugging around, but we make the most of it. Haven't had to shoot a bear yet but we've seen plenty, even a few near our field area that the chopper pilot chased off for us. Words aren't enough so we'll try to get some more pics up soon. Our connection is quite slow so we may not be able to get pics up as fast as we'd like.

Happy Father's Day Dad.

few more pics

Went on a really fun ATV tour with Alaska Earth Sciences geologist Andy the other night. We buzzed up the road towards Hatcher Pass but it's still not passable due to snow. Apparently the state will plow it only after July 4, if needed. We also went down to one of the creeks in the valley to the south. Good fun. A couple of pics from this outing and from Jo's wanderings while mapping are on the Flickr site. She took a few nice shots of the old turn-of-the-century workings.

L-cky Shot

We're back in the field...about 2.5 hours by car north of Anchorage near Hatcher Pass. It's a gorgeous area and the rocks are nice too, with visible gold in many of the drill holes. I'll only be here till Friday, then head to Chignik on the Alaska Peninsula on Saturday to start work there. Jo will meet us in Chignik a week from today (Monday).

We're certainly not roughing it at camp. We have the good fortune to spend the week at a B&B that used to give tours of the old underground mine workings. Below is a pic of where we're staying.



When drilling started up again last year, the owner (also owner of the claim), stopped running tours and now hosts the work crew. Here now are 3-5 geologists, a handfull of geotech staff, and 4-5 drillers and helpers, the B & B staff, and our helicopter pilot. As the current drilling is on top of a ridge, the helicopter is needed to move people and equipment. When the rest of the snow melts the ridge top is accessible by 4-wheeled ATVs.

Yesterday was pretty crazy. The husband of a cook here tried to land his plane on the ridge near the B & B but got caught in a crosswind, swerved off course upon landing and flipped the plane when the nose hit a snowbank on the edge of the old tailings pond! Fortunately he walked away with only a bump on his head. Later that evening we got a front loader and helped flip it back over. He also was able to embed a rock just bigger than a softball perfectly in the center of the nosecone. The pics are on the flickr page if you don't believe the rest of this.



Jo's a bit freaked out as two grizzly bears were spotted about 1 mile away from her today by some hikers...and it's only her first day mapping! Scott (our chopper pilot) said he'd buzz the area though and keep an eye out the rest of the week. I'm glad I'm logging core...